Here is Chief Mouina of the Taeeh tribe,
drawn by Captain David Porter in his Journal of a Cruise Made to the
Pacific Ocean in the Years 1812, 1813, and 1814. Mouina is remarkable,
among other things, for the naturalistic ornaments that  decorate
his battle dress: feathers from man-o-war birds and tropic birds in his
hair, a huge war-conch at his waist, bone and ivory ornaments for his ears,
and a whale tooth necklace, "the object of the greatest value at this as
well as all the other islands of this group" (near the Marquesas). Global
explorations from the time of Captain Cook onward were important
not only because they introduced the Western world to new modes of human
life, but also because of the countless new species of plants and
animals that were "discovered," classified, and transported back to Europe
and America as a result of these voyages. Naturalists, whose goal was to
record and collect the wide range of flora and fauna that were always encountered
in new corners of the globe, accompanied many of these expeditions. Sydney
Parkinson (with Captain Cook's first voyage, 1768-71), Johann and George
Forster (on Cook's second voyage, 1772-75), Ferdinand Bauer (in Australia)
and William
Bartram (in North America) all contributed scientific observation,
personal narratives, and remarkable visual artistry to the emerging discourse
of the natural world. In fact, it was a 22-year-old "failed" medical student
with a stack of notebooks who would board HMS Beagle in 1831 and change
humanity's sense of "nature" forever: Charles
Darwin. |